Skip to main content

Brake speaks out to support UK motorway speed cameras

Responding to reports that the UK Highways Agency is to roll out speed cameras on stretches of ‘smart’ motorways, road safety charity Brake has spoken in support of the proposal. Julie Townsend, deputy chief executive, Brake, the road safety charity, said: "Speed cameras are an extremely well evidenced, cost-effective way to improve safety and reduce deaths and injuries on roads where they are placed, preventing families going through the trauma of a sudden bereavement or life-changing injury. Put simpl
February 4, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
Responding to reports that the 1841 UK Highways Agency is to roll out speed cameras on stretches of ‘smart’ motorways, road safety charity 4235 Brake has spoken in support of the proposal.

Julie Townsend, deputy chief executive, Brake, the road safety charity, said: "Speed cameras are an extremely well evidenced, cost-effective way to improve safety and reduce deaths and injuries on roads where they are placed, preventing families going through the trauma of a sudden bereavement or life-changing injury. Put simply: speed cameras reduce speeding, which helps to prevent deadly crashes. Breaking the speed limit is risky and illegal, so only drivers who break the law will face fines."

The cameras are to be installed as part of the UK Highways Agency Digital Enforcement Camera System (HADECS 3) managed motorway project to support the implementation of mandatory variable speed limits on selected motorways, in an effort to keep traffic flowing and increasing motorway capacity. Police already have the powers to enforce the 70 mph motorway speed limit.

Related Content

  • Enforcement a key part of the road safety solution
    January 31, 2012
    The Partnership for Advancing Road Safety is a new organisation set up in the US to push the national debate on speed and intersection safety, something which hitherto has been absent. Here, executive director David Kelly explains the organisation's work. With moves to address drink/drug driving and the wearing of seatbelts starting to prove successful in the US, the use of inappropriate speed and poor driving at intersections have become responsible for a proportionately greater number of the deaths and in
  • Traffic signals turn red to stop speeding drivers
    March 15, 2012
    David Crawford is encouraged by the spread of 'soft' speed policing 
  • IAM calls on government to increase targeted enforcement
    June 4, 2015
    The Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) is urging the new government to increase its efforts in promoting road safety by giving targeted enforcement a higher priority. With the yet-to-be-revealed figures for 2014 shaping up to show an increase in deaths and injuries on UK roads, the IAM believes the new government must make road traffic policing a core priority function for police forces and commissioners in England and Wales. The call comes following a survey conducted by the IAM throughout April 2
  • USDoT embraces Vision Zero
    January 31, 2022
    'We cannot tolerate the continuing crisis of roadway deaths,' says transport sec Pete Buttigieg